Scenario Development and Analysis

Catalog description

The development and analysis of realistic future scenarios provides an organization with a useful and pragmatic framework for making better, more flexible decisions concerning its own strategy or longer-term development issues, as well as, in some instances, shorter-range operational or market-oriented questions. While most business organizations carry out some kind of strategic planning, those that include a futures component in the process gain a decided advantage, as they will have considered alternative future landscapes rather than basing their plan on the assumption that one particular future will materialize. This approach involves not only understanding a range of outcomes that might plausibly develop a given strategic environment, but also, using this vision to formulate resilient strategies and bring about organizational alignment and buy-in. In this course, students will learn the methodology for building future scenarios and will apply them to real-life examples in order to develop a portfolio of realistic scenarios for a specific organization or industry.